Yellowstone grizzly put down after hiker killed

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds.

There are more than 500 grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park.

Story highlights

The bear's twin female cubs will be placed at the Toledo Zoo sometime this fall

Female grizzly was identified and euthanized on Thursday

The victim was found in a popular off-trail area in Yellowstone National Park

(CNN)A grizzly bear was euthanized Thursday after an autopsy of a hiker confirmed that the bear killed him in Yellowstone National Park last week.

Autopsy results confirmed that Lance Crosby, 63, died as a result of traumatic injuries sustained from a grizzly bear attack, park officials said. Additional evidence also pointed to the female bear as his attacker, they said.

Two twin female cubs captured with her will be transferred to the Toledo Zoo sometime this fall, the zoo announced Friday. The cubs, which weigh around 50 pounds right now, are less than a year old. Wildlife officials said they're too young to survive in the wild without their mother. An adult female grizzly can weigh up to 500 pounds.

"An important fact in the decision to euthanize the bear was that a significant portion of the (hiker's) body was consumed and cached with the intent to return for further feeding," the park said in a media statement. "Normal defensive attacks by female bears defending their young do not involve consumption of the victim's body."

The grizzly was captured shortly after park rangers found Crosby's body on August 7. A DNA analysis confirmed her hair was found near the body.

The park detailed additional evidence as well: The adult bear and two cubs were at the attack site when park rangers found Crosby's body, a female bear tracks and her cubs' tracks were found near the body, and puncture wounds on the victim were consistent with the captured female grizzly's bite.

"As managers of Yellowstone National Park, we balance the preservation of park resources with public safety," said Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Dan Wenk. "Our decision takes into account the facts of the case, the goals of the bear management program and the long-term viability of the grizzly bear population as a whole, rather than an individual bear."

1. Golden Gate National Recreation Area – The National Park Service is made up of 405 sites, including 59 specially designated national parks, plus national seashores, recreation areas, historical sites and other designations. Here are the top 10 most-visited spots in 2014 across all of the park service sites, followed by a list of the top 10 most popular National Parks. California's Golden Gate National Recreation Area, shown here, was the most popular Park Service site for the second year in a row.

Hide Caption

1 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

2. Blue Ridge Parkway – This spectacular overlook near Mount Mitchell on the Blue Ridge Parkway, No. 2 on the park service's list of most-visited sites, is in North Carolina. The parkway also crosses into Virginia.

Hide Caption

2 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

3. Great Smoky Mountains National Park – Great Smoky Mountains National Park, No. 3 on the list of most-visited park sites, is in North Carolina and Tennessee. It is also the No. 1 most-visited national park.

Hide Caption

3 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

4. George Washington Memorial Parkway – George Washington Memorial Parkway in Washington, Virginia and Maryland came in fourth place on this list of most-visited park sites in 2014.

Hide Caption

4 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

5. Lincoln Memorial – The Lincoln Memorial in Washington came in fifth place for visitation.

Hide Caption

5 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

6. Lake Mead National Recreation Area – The Lake Mead National Recreation Area, in both Arizona (shown here) and Nevada, came in sixth place on the National Park Service list of most-visited park sites.

Hide Caption

6 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

7. Gateway National Recreation Area – The Sandy Hook Lighthouse in New Jersey is part of Gateway National Recreation Area, which is also in New York. It came in seventh place on the list.

Hide Caption

7 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

8. Natchez Trace Parkway – The Natchez Trace Parkway, shown here near Tupelo, Mississippi, also crosses into Alabama and Tennessee. It came in eighth place on the most-visited sites list.

Hide Caption

8 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

9. Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historic Park – The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, which landed in ninth place on the park sites list, is in the District of Columbia and the states of Maryland and West Virginia.

Hide Caption

9 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

10. Grand Canyon National Park – Arizona's Grand Canyon National Park nudged out last year's tenth place holder, the Delaware Water Gap National Creation Area, to claim the tenth place spot.

Hide Caption

10 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

1. Great Smoky Mountains National Park – Many of the most famous parks in the world are among the U.S. National Park Service's 59 headliner national parks. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which was the third most-popular park site in 2013 and 2014, was also the most popular national park for both years. Shown here is the view from Purchase Knob.

Hide Caption

11 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

2. Grand Canyon National Park – Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona was the second most popular national park last year. Shown here is an inversion: cold fog trapped in the canyon by a "lid" of warm air. What makes it rare are the sunny skies accentuating the layers of air.

4. Yellowstone National Park – Yellowstone National Park, which is mostly in Wyoming but also in Idaho and Montana, was the fourth most-popular national park last year.

Hide Caption

14 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

5. Rocky Mountain National Park – Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park, which turned 100 in 2014, moved up one spot in the rankings to take fifth place last year.

Hide Caption

15 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

6. Olympic National Park – Olympic National Park in Washington state dropped one spot to sixth place last year.

Hide Caption

16 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

7. Zion National Park – Zion National Park in Utah remained in seventh place on the park service's list of most popular national parks for the second year in a row. Here, a hiker wades up the Virgin River in the Zion Narrows.

Hide Caption

17 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

8. Grand Teton National Park – Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, which came in eighth place, is home to grizzly bears (shown here), black bears and other wild animals.

Hide Caption

18 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

9. Acadia National Park – Maine's beloved Acadia National Park is the ninth most-popular national park in the country.

Hide Caption

19 of 20

Photos:Most-visited national park sites 2014

10. Glacier National Park, Montana – Glacier National Park in Montana held onto tenth place for the second year in a row.

Hide Caption

20 of 20

Crosby was a long-term seasonal employee of Medcor, a company that operates three urgent-care clinics in Yellowstone. An experienced hiker, he had worked and lived in Yellowstone for five seasons, the park said.

He was reported missing Friday morning when he did not report for work. A park ranger found his body in a popular off-trail area less than a mile from Elephant Back Loop Trail, an area he was known to frequent. That trail and other areas, which had been closed after the attack, will reopen Friday.

This was the first fatal human-bear encounter in Yellowstone in 2015, park spokeswoman Amy Bartlett said.

Deadly encounters between bears and humans are rare in Yellowstone. From 1872 to 2011, black and grizzly bears killed seven people in the park, according to its website. And from 2007 to 2013, wildlife killed only six people in the entire national park system, according to the National Park Service.

The grizzly bear population in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem was estimated to be between 674 and 839 in 2014, according to the National Park Service.